Kanye West on a European tour

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Expect new theatrical ideas when Kanye West (photo) takes to the road this summer. West will launch a European tour featuring his latest album, 808s & Heartbreak, in July and expects the tour to hit the US by fall.

Speaking on the set of a recent video shoot for his friend 88-Keys’ Stay Up (Viagra), West said he was excited to find new ways to blend his songs together.

“Being on stage, it’s the glory,” West said.

The producer-turned-rapper-turned-singer has consulted with many of the same people who helped inspire staging for his last set of shows, the Glow in the Dark Tour. They include filmmaker Spike Jonze, who directed West’s upcoming See You In My Nightmares video, and The Jim Henson Company.

West was alone on a colorful, futuristic tilted stage for nearly the entire performance of his Glow tour last year. It came after West’s mother Donda died in November 2007 and he had broken up with his fiancée, events that put him in the mood for a less-than-celebratory hip-hop concert.

“I get bored with stuff,” West said in a recent interview. “The last one was done because I didn’t feel like doing a rap show, because of all I was going through in my life. All I felt like was playing with Star Wars (toys) and being Luke Skywalker. So I figured you know, ‘I’ll do a rap show if I can just be like Luke Skywalker every night.’ And so I just wrote my own sci-fi and played in it.”

The blue period that inspired that tour also set the stage for 808s & Heartbreak. It features West using the Auto-Tune technology popularized by T-Pain to sing in a hollow, distant voice about loss and sorrow.